what he told Stragen, you’re supposed to be able to see these
“Forbidden Mountains” from those salt-plains. Then there was
something about “Fiery White Pillars” and “The Plain of Bones”.
He said that the bones are “the nameless slaves who toil until
death for Cyrgon’s Chosen”. Evidently when a slave dies in
Cyrga, he’s taken out and dumped in the desert.’
‘That boneyard wouldn’t be very far from the city, then,
Kalten mused.
‘It does all sort of fit together, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said seriously.
‘The Cynesgans themselves are largely nomads, so they
wouldn’t have any real need for large numbers of slaves. Ogeragin
spoke of “Cyrgon’s Chosen”. That would be the Cyrgai, and
they’re probably the ones who buy slaves.’
‘And that would mean that the caravan of slavers we saw is
going to Cyrga, wouldn’t it?’ Talen added excitedly.
‘And they were going northwest,’ Mirtai said, ‘the exact direction
Ogerajin was raving about.’
Sparhawk went to his saddle-bags and took out his map. He
sat down again and opened it, holding it firmly as the desert
wind started to flap its corners. ‘We know that Cyrga’s somewhere
in these mountains in central Cynesga,’ he mused, ‘so
we’ll be going in that direction anyway. If Ogerajin was just
raving and his directions don’t go anyplace, we’ll still be in the
right vicinity if we follow them.’
‘It’s better than just sitting here waiting for Berit and Khalad,’
Kalten said impatiently. ‘I have to be doing something – even if
it’s only riding around in circles out there in the desert.’
Sparhawk wordlessly put a comforting hand on his old
friend’s shoulder. His own desperate concern was at least as
driving as Kalten’s, but he knew that he had to keep it separate,
remote. Desperate men make mistakes, and a mistake here could
put Ehlana in even greater peril. His emotions screamed at him,
but he grimly, implacably, pushed them into a separate compartment
of his mind and firmly closed the door.
‘Anakha would be made glad if we would do this,’ Ulath said
in Trollish to the enormous presences.
Ghworg, God of Kill, rumbled ominously. ‘Anakha’s thought
is like the wind,’ he complained. ‘One time he said to us, “Go
to the place the man-things call the Tamul Mountains to kill the
children of Cyrgon.” Now he says to us, “Go to the place the
man-things call Zhubay to kill the Children of Cyrgon.” Can he
not decide which Children of Cyrgon he wants us to kill?’
‘It is the way of the hunt, Ghworg,’ Tynian explained. ‘The
Children of Cyrgon are not like the red-deer, which feeds always
in the same range. The Children of Cyrgon are like the reindeer,
which goes from this place to that place as the seasons change
to find better food. Before, they were going to this place, Tamul
Mountains, to feed, but now they go to the place Zhubay to
feed. If we hunt in this place Tamul Mountains, we will find no
game to kill and eat.’
‘It speaks well,’ Ghnomb, God of Eat, said. ‘It is not Anakha’s
thought which changes, it is the path of the creatures we hunt
which changes. The way of the hunt tells us that we must go
where they graze if we would find them and kill them and eat
them. ‘
‘This hunt becomes more and more not-simple,’ Ghworg
grumbled.
That is because the man-things are more not-simple than the
deer-things,’ Khwaj, God of Fire, told him. ‘The thought of
Tynian-from-Deira is good. The one who hunts where there is
no game does not eat.’
Ghworg pondered it. ‘We must follow the way of the hunt,’
he decided. ‘We will take our children to the place Zhubay to
hunt the Children of Cyrgon. When they come there to graze,
our children will kill them and eat them.’
‘It would make us glad if you would,’ Tynian said politely.
‘I will take our children into the Time-Which-Does-Not-Move,’
Ghnomb said. ‘They will be in the place Zhubay before the Children
of Cyrgon come there.’
Schlee, God of Ice, stuck his huge fingers into the dirt. The
earth shuddered slightly and contorted itself into his picture of
the continent. ‘Show us where, Ulath-from-Thalesia,’ he said.
‘Where is the place Zhubay?’
Ulath walked some distance along the southwestern edge of
the tiny mountains of Atan, peering intently at the ground. Then
he stopped, bent, and touched a spot a short way out into the
northern end of the Desert of Cynesga. ‘It is here, Schlee,’ he
said.
Ghworg, God of Kill, stood up. ‘We will take our children
there,’ he declared. ‘Let us make Anakha glad.’
‘They’re watching us, Vanion,’ Sephrenia said quietly.
He pulled his horse in closer to hers. ‘Styrics?’ he asked
quietly.
‘One of them is,’ she replied. ‘He’s not particularly skilled.’
She smiled faintly. ‘I may have to hit him over the head to get
his attention.’
‘Whatever it takes, love,’ he said. He glanced back over his
shoulder at the column of knights and then on ahead. They
were coming down out of the mountains, and the Valley of the
Sama was beginning to broaden. ‘We should reach that bridge
tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘After we cross the river, we’ll be in
Cynesga.’
‘Yes, dear one,’ she said, ‘i’ve seen the map.’
‘Why don’t you cast the spell?’ he suggested. ‘Let’s give our
inept Styric out there a chance to earn his keep.’ He looked
at her gravely. ‘i’m having some second thoughts about this,
Sephrenia. klael’s still out there, and if he thinks Sparhawk’s
somewhere in this column with Bhelliom, he’ll be all over us.’
‘You can’t have it both ways, Vanion,’ she said with a fond
smile. ‘You said that you were never going to let me out of your
sight, so if you insist on going into dangerous places, I’m sort
of obliged to go along. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll wake up
that Styric.’ She began to speak softly in Styric, her fingers weaving
the spell as she did so.
Vanion was puzzled. He took a certain pride in his familiarity
with most of the spells, but this was one he had never seen or
heard before. He watched more closely.
‘Never mind,’ she told him crisply, breaking off the spell. ‘You
don’t need to know this one.’
‘But -‘
“just look over there, Vanion,’ she said. ‘I can do this without
any help.’ She paused. ‘Humor me, dear one. A girl needs a
few secrets, after all.’
He smiled and turned his head.
There was a kind of vague blurring in the air about ten yards
away, and then, as surely as if he were really there, Vanion
saw Sparhawk appear, mounted as always on his evil-tempered
roan. So real was the image that flies were attracted to the horse.
‘Brilliant!’ Vanion exclaimed. He sent out a probing thought and
even encountered the familiar sense of Sparhawk’s presence. ‘if
I didn’t know better, I’d swear that he was really here. Can you
sustain this illusion?’
‘Naturally,’ she said in an infuriatingly offhand way. And then
she laughed, reached out and fondly touched his cheek.
‘What took you so long?’ Talen asked the Child Goddess when
she appeared on the edge of their camp outside Vigayo the
following morning.
‘i’ve been busy,’ she replied with a little shrug. ‘This is a fairly
complex business, you know. We all do want to get there at
approximately the same time, don’t we? What’s the problem
here, Sparhawk?’
‘We might have just had a bit of good luck for a change, Divine
One,’ he replied. ‘Talen and I were in the village yesterday, and we
heard one of the villagers refer to their oasis as “the Well of Vigay”. ‘
‘So?’
‘Why don’t you tell her about it, Talen?’
The young thief quickly repeated the conversation between
Ogerajin and Stragen back in Beresa.
‘What do you think?’ Kalten asked the Child Goddess.
‘Does somebody have a map?’ she asked.
Sparhawk went to his saddle-bags, took out his tightly rolled
map,and brought it to her.
She spread it out on the ground, knelt in front of it, and
studied it for several moments. ‘There are some salt-flats out
there,’ she conceded.
‘And they are in the right direction,’ Bevier pointed out.
‘Ogerajin’s been there,’ Talen added, ‘at least he says he has,
so he’d almost have to’ know the way, wouldn’t he?’
‘There’s also a slaver’s route that runs off to the northwest,’
Mirtai said. ‘We saw a caravan following it when we first got
here, and Ogerajin mentioned the fact that the Cyrgai keep
slaves. It sort of stands to reason that the slave caravan’s bound
for Cyrga, doesn’t it?’
‘You’re hanging all this speculation on the ravings of a madman,
you know,’ Flute said critically.
‘We do have a bit of verification, Aphrael,’ Sparhawk reminded
her. ‘The villagers use the same term for their oasis as Ogerajin
did, the salt-flats are where he said they were, and the slavers